As the Spring makes way to the Summer...

Days are getting hotter and the scorching heat of the Sun is making the afternoon walks a tough call.

After a lovely and bloomy spring its time now to face the heat!

Leaves of Kusum Tree

But I thoroughly enjoyed the blooming season this time. I enjoyed my everyday drive through the avenues of Jayanagar while I was on the way to my office. I have witnessed blooming of Pink Poui (Tabebuia rosea) around Jayanagar Shopping Complex and the transition of a complete avenue containing African Tulip Trees from complete brown to wonderful soft green and then to dense dark green. Now it is the time of Jacaranda! As I am writing this blog there is still a blooming Jacaranda tree right in front of Maiyas Restaurant in Jayanagar. 

Last month we had been to Dharma Reservoir when we visited Yellapur. We took a shorter road which goes via few villages and through jungle. To our pleasure, we saw an entire tree with red bloom. It was a Kusum tree (Schleichera oleosa). Seeing the shiny red new leaves was a treat to our eyes.

 Kusum Tree

Flowers of Coral Tree

 
The forest was teeming with flowing trees and as the production was high so were the consumers! Tall and dry trees were having huge number of bee hives! In the time when the global population of wild bees is reducing at an alarming rate seeing such colonies of bees was a real treat! 

I am seeing bee hives not just in the rural jungles but in the urban concrete jungles as well! At my office on Brunton Road, every year when the Rain Tree (Albizia saman), which is in front of our office blooms we are having Bee hives to the structural blocks of the building. This is the third year now! 
 
After enjoying the bloom all across the city and outside, now it is time to face the Sun! Dry deciduous forest region in Dandeli gave us the glimpse already few weeks back!

Now when I visit Sirsi in the end of April, I know what can expect!
 

 
Cheers,
Ash

Birds, Boats and Bagheera! - An experience in Dandeli

Any nature lover would be thrilled to hear the news of sighting a Black Panther!
Any avid birder would be thrilled to hear the sighting of Great Hornbills!
Any adventure lover would be thrilled to hear about amazing experience of white water rafting in river Kali!

Last weekend we experienced all the three!

That was in Dandeli!

I never thought that accepting an offer to experience Dandeli for two days would turn out to be so exciting and fruitful! It is not that I was going there for the first time. I had a nice time in 2006 when I attended the first meet if India Nature Watch at Kulgi Nature Camp, very near to Dandeli.

Dandeli is arguably one of the most bird rich areas of Karnataka. It is a paradise for birders and it doesn't take much to fall in love with birds after seeing the big birds like Malabar Pied Hornbill and its bigger brother Great Hornbill! If you want to see Malabar Pied Hornbills then Dandeli is THE place to be! You will find them almost everywhere!

Great Hornbill on a fruiting tree

Plum Headed Parakeet on a flowering tree

Summer has set in and the dry deciduous forest region of Dandeli-Anashi Tiger Reserve is embracing the pale brown color all over its canopy! Our visit to the Sunset point inside the National Park in the morning gave us a nice glimpse of the summer attire of this portion of the Western Ghats! The occasional flight of Malabar Pied Hornbills and the sightings of Malabar Giant Squirrels dwelling the canopies are treat to watch standing on the Sunset point.

The view of the vista combined with the flight of the hornbills over the canopy will offset the disappointment of relatively scarce wildlife in the park.

Barking Deer, inside the National Park

White water rafting in river Kali is another experience that is a must if you visit Dandeli. The rafting is conducted by the folks of Jungle Lodges and Resorts (JLR). The total distance of rafting is about 10kms and it takes a good 60-90 min to complete all the eight rapids. We had a wonderful time watching hornbills fly across the river on many occasions and at one point in time one bird came and sat on a low hanging branch while our raft was just under it! That was thrilling. It was my closest encounter with the bird.  

 Malabar Pied Hornbill over the forest canopy

Sighting of Black Panther in the dawn was an experience of my lifetime! As we were all talking in the jeep about possibility of sighting wild cats in the wee hours of the morning and our jeep was hardly 100 meters from the resort this fella was walking on the road gracefully! It took us quite sometime to realize what we were seeing is true! Our driver had initially thought that it was a sloth bear and I was so excited that I couldn't utter a single word! I slowly went near his ears and ushered that 'My boy, it is a Black Panther!'. By that time he had also realised that and was equally shocked! It was the first encounter with the most elusive cat for him as well!
Murphy ruled again! It was very early morning...no light at all...our jeep's head light was quite dim....and...the panther was Black! My camera started hunting to focus and my 300mm lens was of little use given the distance between us and the cat. By the time my camera caught something to focus the fella had happily left the scene by leaving all the thrill behind! So in the end it was just the memories of the encounter and the thrill of its sightings which remained.

There are many places around Dandeli for tourists. We visited Syntheri Rocks, a small falls beside a very huge rock! A very nice place to spend the evening. But it is not advisable to get into the water here as there are lots of casualties reported from past several years of people getting drowned in the water.

Overall, Dandeli is a fantastic place to be if you are a nature lover and the place will not disappoint you be it any season!


My stay in Dandeli Jungle Camp was arranged by www.dandeli.com

"N E R A L U" - The tree fest

Last Saturday I was at Cubbon Park, attending the first of its kind festival - Festival of trees of Bengaluru - NERALU.

The event was entirely crowd-funded and various enthusiasts from all over the city had contributed for the success of the event.

More about this initiative can be found at: http://neralu.in/

There were talks by eminent people about various aspects of trees of the city and the ecosystem around it. There were also activities for kids, 'Hug-a-Tree' campaign, an exhibition of photographs of trees by various photographers, various cultural events and many more.


Here is a small collection of images that I made during the time I was there on the first day.

There were many such beautiful hanging posters that were hand made with utmost artistry.   

The informative display boards were truly eye-catching!

 There was one or the other activity for everyone irrespective of the age!

"Hug-a-Tree"

"Hug-a-Tree"

 

A scene from the short play - Of Lata And Ashoka

Amphitheater where the short play was performed

 Hats-off to the people behind making this thought come true! 

Cheers,

Ash 

A brief account of an eventful month!

January has been very hectic. Not a single weekend was free and the whole month was quite an eventful one.

Bay Backed Shrike in the thorny scrub forest around Tirunalveli

The first weekend was much awaited 'Chitra Santhe 2014', that was preponed this year by couple of weeks! The exhibition went very well this time, where our stall was visited by quite a large crowd.

A fancy Fantail Flycatcher spotted during Bangalore Bird Race

Then Sahana and me had been to Kaiga, to participate in the 'Kaiga Bird Marathon - 2014'. We had a nice time birding around the place, where I got to see four lifers!

 Bay Backed Shrike in its flying aerobatics! 

Third Sunday was Bangalore Bird Race! A full day of nice birding and followed by a get together of loads of birders from the city in the evening.

A Pied Crested Cuckoo, also called as harbinger of rain, spotted in the outskirts of Tirunalveli.

And the most exhilarating experience was the last weekend of Jan!! We trekked to Kumara Parvatha! Arguably the toughest trek of South India that pushes ones endurance to the limit!

The whole month was quite eventful!

Started processing pending images. Shared images here are from my visit to Tirunalveli and during Bangalore Bird Race.


Cheers,
Ash

Nice start for the new year

Wish you all a very happy new year!

The year has started well for me. We at Landscape Wizards had a nice show at 'Chitra Santhe' this time. Unlike the last time we had many framed fine-art images for sale. The response this time was really excellent and we had some good sales as well.

Year 2014 has begun well! Loads of things to do this time.

Hoping to be back on track! ;-)

Cheers and happy new year once again,

Ash

Places seen wide

When we go to a place that has got wide views, say top of a mountain, often we find that it is difficult to convert the feel of being there into an effective image. This problem is equally faced by any tourist/trekker and a photographer. It is often very difficult to convert the feel of being at a place that has the view of a very vast expanse into something measurable as the pixels.

One of the ways, which sometime does a better job than a conventional two dimensional photograph is to shoot multiple frames across the vastness and creating a panorama by stitching those images together.

Though it has got the limitation of scrolling to see the whole image, but the sense of how wide the scene was would still be maintained.

I had faced same problem on various occasions. The one that I remember the most was while I was at Unchalli Falls on a near full moon night at around 12:30AM! I was there to shoot the falls in the moon night and my initial idea was to shoot the falls using a wide angle including some portion of the sky with few stars. But when I stood at the shooting spot I saw that the whole valley was lit up beautifully with the moonlight and I just dumped the idea of shooting only the falls since it was not giving any meaning when compared to the feel of being there at night and looking at the moon-lit valley. I decided to make a panorama and result is the below image.

Unchalli Falls at night. (Click for the lager image)

When I was at Hampi to shoot for the book on Daroji, I saw an opportunity to make another panorama. This time I was without a tripod and the whole scene was very very wide. I took a chance and went ahead with shooting handheld and it took about 20+ images to cover the complete scene. Luckily the stitch went perfect and I was very happy with the result.

Hampi  (Click for the lager image)

This year when I had been to Ooty with my wife there was a huge Eucalyptus tree. I was at a slightly higher place and it was difficult to shoot the tree. It was either getting distorted due to the wide angle lens or it was not completely covering in the frame. Then Sahana suggested me to try a vertical panorama and there you go, it was a fantastic idea! I tried the vertical panorama for the first time and the result was not bad at all!

 

That is Sahana to give the scale of the hugeness of the tree :)

There were few more occasions when I found panoramas did a better job in conveying my feeling on that place. I have shared few more here which I think you would enjoy.

Devarayana Durga (Click for the lager image) 

Nameri, post sunset (Click for the lager image) 

Bheemanavaare (Click for the lager image) 

 Jenukallu Gudda (Click for the lager image)

Bhyundar Valley (Valley of Flowers)

Do let me know what do you think about this thought about making panoramas.

There are many more panoramas on our gallery dedicated to panoramas on Landscape wizards. 

Here is the link:    http://www.landscape-wizards.com/home/our-work/panoramas


Cheers,
Ash 

In search of a 'Glow' in the dark!

I had seen glowing twigs when I was studying 12th. One of my friends had brought me one sample twig and had told me that such glowing twigs are found all around his home during monsoon. His home is amidst thick forest. I had kept the twig with me for about a week at my home and due to lack of humidity the glow diminished and ultimately the twig got its moksha in the dust bin! All this had happened around 14 years back and it was a closed chapter in my life until recently I recollected the whole episode. That made me to start search for the glow which litters the forest floor in the Western Ghats.

Incidentally Sriharsha was also thinking about the same in parallel and during a normal conversation we happened to know that we both of us are looking for the same thing - Glowing Fungi!

This is how it looks during the day! 

Absolutely no clue as to it would glow so beautifully in dark!

Then happened the cycle of searches and enquiries and finally we managed to find them and more importantly shoot them.

Shooting was a huge challenge as the conditions were not favorable.

Our experiences and the results are now shared on Landscape Wizards - "Luminous Landscapes".

Don't miss to watch the video of our experience and the wonderful GIF by Sriharsha is just an icing on the cake.

Hope you enjoy.

Cheers,
Ash

Timeless 'Shivagange'

Kanooru Kote was special to me for its mystic and haunted feel. I had tried to bring the same mood in my blog post: Timeless Kanooru Kote.

I set out with similar mission and this time it was Shivagange, a sacred hill near Tumkur. There are literature available on net for its historical and cultural importance. My purpose here is not to highlight that but to present the place visually in such a way that its timelessness is felt through the imagery. My decision to go monotone was driven by this fact.

So not much text in this post. Through these images I have tried to convey my feelings while I trekked through the place.

Click on the images to see them bigger.

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts / views ?


- Ash